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MAGINE AN ENTIRE
sold-out stadium on its
feet, caught up in a sweat-
ing frenzy of chants and
songs, arms holding team
scarves aloft or waving
flags, as horns sound and drums ra le
and people on bullhorns shout com-
mands. Now imagine scores of those
fans working a complex system of
pulleys in unison to unveil a gigantic
handmade banner covering one end
of the stadium, while thousands
of opposing fans, who’ve also
been on their feet chanting
and singing and drumming and
screaming for hours, defiantly turn
their backs on the spectacle. Now
imagine all of this taking place at a
soccer game. In America. And the
matchhasn’t evenstartedyet.Welcome
to the world of professional soccer in
the Pacific Northwest.
In the pocket of theU.S. best known
for coffee, rain and grunge, there
exists a fanatical obsession with “the
Beautiful Game.” For both Portland
and Sea le, soccer—long considered
the redheaded stepchild of American
sports—is deeply rooted in the local
DNA. The rivalry between the respec-
tive fan bases of the two cities’
Major League Soccer clubs,
the Portland Timbers and
the Seattle Sounders, is
as intense and crazed
and magical to behold as any other in
the country.
Much of this has to do with the
clubs’ shared history. Starting 37 years
ago in the original North American
Soccer League, and moving from the
Western Soccer League to the United
Soccer League to their current place
inMajor League Soccer, they’ve played
each other a total of 76 times, with 40
Sea lewins, 27 Portlandwins andnine
draws coming into the 2012 season.
That kind of history (an eter-
nity in U.S. professional soccer)
has helped forge a rivalry
TRUE BELIEVERS
Fans of the Seattle
Sounders and the Portland Timbers face off
in a rivalry that has spanned decades
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